


hush hush baby

by veniyuri



Series: butterfly effect [1]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst with a Happy Ending, Artist!Minseok, M/M, Tragedy/Comedy, Vampire!Jongin, im incapable of writing miserable endings so its more hopeful i think!, speculations on life and death, the warning looks scary but i promise its not too sad, this sounds doom and gloom but its rly more wistful mb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:55:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22575163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veniyuri/pseuds/veniyuri
Summary: "You should have just told me you were homeless."Minseok takes in a dying vampire.
Relationships: Kim Jongin | Kai/Kim Minseok | Xiumin, Lu Han/Oh Sehun, Past Kim Minseok | Xiumin/Lu Han - Relationship
Series: butterfly effect [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1624495
Comments: 10
Kudos: 84





	hush hush baby

If anyone asks, Minseok is sheltering a homeless man. They'll call him a bleeding heart, but that's better than what Minseok thinks of when he hears the word blood.

In short it's Jongin, crowding someone against the outside of his apartment building in the shadow of a streetlight. It's not particularly gruesome, and the guy isn't screaming.

A closer look tells Minseok it might be his neighbor too.

But he'll never forget how Jongin had looked at him the first time, blood dripping down his chin, with an I-told-you-so smile on his face.

"This is a lot easier to explain when you know I'm not homeless, isn't it?"

Actually, Jongin hadn't said he was homeless or a vampire when they first met. His exact words were more like:

"I'm dying."

And Minseok had looked him up and down, a man who looked like a model wearing designer clothes sitting on the side of the street, and made a simpler assessment.

"You're drunk." And he planned to walk off with that. But much like anything in his life, especially when it had to do with Jongin, his plan didn't follow through.

"You need a sponsor, for your art."

Which, yes he did because without money Minseok couldn't do shit with paintings that no one saw and no one wanted, but that wasn't why he stopped. Strangers weren't supposed to know how to the letter he followed the starving artist archetype. 

"Says who?" he asked slowly. He'd never seen this man before in his life, and a handful of his real acquaintances didn't even know the details of his financial situation. There was no way a stranger could without... stalking him or something.

"Says me, and you." The guy tapped on his ear. "I've heard you talking on the phone. It doesn't sound good."

What didn't sound good was this explanation. Minseok wrinkled his nose in suspicion, and for some reason the drunkard smiled.

"I can help you with that, you know. I have more money than I know what to do with; I could fund your entire life."

"Like a sugar daddy?" Minseok grimaced. "I'll pass."

And he would have walked away right then, if only Jongin hadn't stood up and with inhuman speed spun Minseok around to face him, his grip on Minseok's bicep painful.

"I'm dying."

Minseok was about to call him out for repeating his obvious lie, except there was more this time.

"And I'm a vampire too, so we go home or we don’t."

There was a soft emphasis on _we_ that Minseok didn’t misunderstand. The threat wasn't exactly menacing in itself, but Jongin looked at him in a way that made Minseok's hairs stand up and when he swallowed, the other's eyes followed the bob of his throat. _Alright,_ he thought. He was probably dealing with a lunatic and would be better off phoning the police closer to home than some dinky street.

"Follow me."

He did not, in fact, end up calling the police, but sometimes Minseok thinks he should have. 

Like when he's hauling his unconscious neighbor's ass up to their floor, with the perpetrator yawning as he trails behind them.

"Couldn't you have kept this farther from home? At least a different floor?" Minseok grumbles as he adjusts his hold on Sehun yet again because the man is heavy and taller and no different than a sack of bricks. "I actually have to associate with Sehun after this."

Jongin dignifies him with an especially loud yawn. "S'easier to keep track of 'em when they're close," he slurs, and this is another vampire thing that's apparently a sign that death is approaching: sleepiness after feeding. Minseok thinks it's kind of silly honestly. That's what he expects to hear a grandpa complaining about— _old soul weary bones_ —not a centuries old undead. But afternoon naps are something he can accommodate, so he counts himself lucky there's nothing outrageous like puking blood all over his couch. He'd have to kick Jongin out then.

"He won't remember anything, no worries," the vampire continues, trying to reassure Minseok.

It doesn't work.

"Luhan is going to ask about the marks. He'll think they're hickeys again." And that's a whole other mess Minseok has unwittingly made worse after taking Jongin in. The first few times "mosquito bite" had been an appropriate explanation for the red marks on Sehun's neck, because vampire bites have a way of healing that makes them indistinguishable from a regular human blemish. But multiply the same occurrence—amnesiac Sehun, marks on his neck, Minseok dragging him back—by four and it just gets suspicious.

"You can come up with a different excuse," Jongin suggests, as if he's not the entire reason Minseok has to make excuses in the first place.

"At this point it'll really sound like an excuse for a truth I've already told Luhan." In a moment of panic, and under pressure from Luhan's stare and Jongin's secret, Minseok had blurted out that he was the one who marked up Sehun. He wove a story about lingering feelings for Luhan, jealousy, lack of closure, and Luhan had ushered Sehun inside before slamming the door in Minseok's face—but he'd basically bought it.

Minseok still has unresolved feelings about that too.

His break up with Luhan had been pretty unsatisfying, but he's since gotten over it. What's more pressing is the fact that Luhan thinks so lowly of him that he doesn't even question that Minseok would make a move on his boyfriend out of misguided feelings for Luhan. Multiple times now. He thinks his ex-boyfriend should know him better than that, but maybe that's asking too much of an ex.

"Maybe if this breaks them up, you can comfort Luhan and get back together," Jongin offers in a voice that's aiming for hopeful. It comes across too nonchalant for Minseok's liking. He attributes much of the other's oddities to the centuries Jongin has on him, so he's learned to let things slide and wave off remarks here and there. It's different with this though.

Minseok had to have been drunk when he spilled the story of him and Luhan to his freeloader, because ever since then Jongin hasn't given a single piece of good advice on the matter. Minseok shouldn't have told him anything.

"I don't want that, and even if I did I'd be the last person he'd run to. I'm basically the reason they're fighting now. Again." 

Finding out your boyfriend has been living next to his ex for awhile hadn't been a fun discovery for Sehun, but they'd gotten past it eventually once Sehun moved in too and realized Minseok hardly had anything to do with Luhan's day. Now Minseok has tangled himself up in the opposite problem.

He's heard Luhan shout through the walls about how irresponsible Sehun is to drink with Minseok when he knows what happens afterwards, and Sehun of course yells back that he never went out drinking and doesn't know how he ended up like this. Rinse and repeat, because the picture isn't complete without all the pieces present. They're forgetting the vampire that can wipe memories and glamor humans whenever he wants.

"You're just going to leave him here?" Jongin asks, slouching against the wall as Minseok props Sehun next to the door. He's lucky he doesn't drop the guy after the three flights of stairs they trekked up, and he fixes Jongin with a tired stare.

"Do you think I should knock on Luhan's door and say, 'hi here's your drunk boyfriend I took advantage of again don't hate me'?"

Jongin just shrugs and Minseok sighs, eager to hide away in his studio for the rest of the night.

"You should have just told me you were homeless. It would have gotten you more pity," Minseok told Jongin months ago, when they'd first started this cohabiting. A queasy demonstration of Jongin's vampirism on Sehun had been enough to convince Minseok he wasn't lying, but there were a lot more problems that came after the truth.

"I'm going to die a vampire, an asshole, a leech," Jongin listed on his fingers. "But I won't die a liar."

Weird standard, but Minseok wasn't going to question the priorities of a dying man. That alone—dying and more specifically, final hopes and dreams of the nearly deceased—was probably enough to gain Jongin all the pity he wanted from Minseok anyways.

Despite Jongin's repeated insistence that his demise draws near, Minseok usually finds himself forgetting that that's part of the reason why the vampire is settling down in his humble apartment. When he'd asked how long "soon" meant to Jongin, the vampire shrugged and estimated a few months to a few years—both an instant to someone who's seen centuries. Minseok's human mind thinks that he's signed up for a long term roommate by accident.

Jongin doesn't really fit the human perception of dying.

When Minseok imagines a creature on its last legs, he thinks of frailty and staggering movements, trouble breathing, a distinct look of death about them.

Jongin is healthily tan, finds something new to nitpick about his apartment every day, and once beat Minseok in an impromptu sit-up contest just because Minseok had gotten a little impulsive about how he "could definitely win against a dying vampire."

Human food doesn't do anything nutritionally for vampires, but they can digest it and have working tastebuds. Jongin doesn't let Minseok forget how chocolate is superior to blueberries in pancakes, and when Minseok cooks dinner—which is often due to his budget—he doesn't hear the end of how his food is bland and he needs better skills.

The sleepiness is all Minseok can say seems particularly off about Jongin. Day or night, Minseok expects to find Jongin napping as equally as he does awake. It's especially certain after he feeds, but that's a few times a month at most. Much less than an average vampire, according to Jongin, but Minseok wouldn't know.

"Would another vampire look at you and notice you're at death's door?" Minseok asks. They're watching a movie, and Jongin is shoving popcorn in his face. It's about as far from death as Minseok can imagine; the film on TV is even a comedy.

"Probably. I haven't met another one in awhile." He licks the butter off his fingers. "I'm kind of a wreck right now."

Minseok stares at his housemate, lounging on his couch in an outfit that costs more than a lifetime's rent, and finds that hard to believe. Even his pajamas are bougie, the silk kind Minseok has only seen in movies.

And while of course wealth doesn't equal health, Jongin seems perfectly fine living luxuriously for a vampire about to bite the dust. He'd gone shopping for these last week.

"Yeah, you're an absolute mess," he echoes flatly while Jongin nods.

"I know."

The revelation that vampires exist and that he has a new, pseudo-sugar daddy roommate had been Minseok's entire life for about a weekend before life decided to move on regardless and he had to wake up for work as usual. Minseok came fresh out of college wanting to make it in the art world with his fancy new degree, and now six years later he's still hoping to make it. In the meantime, he guides small crowds around different art exhibits, none of them his. 

Do Kyungsoo has sat through multiple awkward meetings with Minseok on the subject. Minseok doesn't feel like he's entitled to a spot in the gallery, but there are only two known ways to get in: pay or be that good. Kyungsoo has told Minseok more than once that he's someone who has to pay.

A polite amount of sheepishness and guilt, considering Minseok is both an employee and a friend, accompanies every rejection, but nonetheless it's not an uplifting scene.

At this rate if he wants his art shown to anyone he's going to need cash, and probably a second job if an option that's not Jongin doesn't show itself soon.

Despite having to resort to threats to get Minseok to take him home, Jongin kept his sponsor offer on the table.

Quite literally, Minseok cooked them dinner and when they were both seated at the table, Jongin slid over a thick wad of cash in place of the side dish Minseok asked for.

"What?" was the only word that came to his head that made it out of his mouth. The fuck was almost there, but not quite before Jongin nudged the money closer and explained. 

"You want your art featured at the gallery you work at still, don't you? This should cover it."

Minseok eyed the cash like it would bite him, then roughly shoved it back towards Jongin.

"I don't need it."

Jongin's eyebrows furrowed. He pushed it back.

"Yes you do."

Minseok picked it up and dropped it in front of Jongin.

"No I don't."

Jongin grabbed his wrist and slapped the money into his palm.

"Minseok, I told you I've heard you on the phone with your boss. You need money that you're not making."

Well when he put it like that, Minseok felt even shittier. Amazing. Pressing his lips together and sucking in a deep breath that he let out with a sigh, Minseok snatched his arm back, got up from the table, and dropped the stack of won in the sink, to Jongin's bewilderment. He stalked back to the table with a stormy expression.

"We're going to talk about your apparent stalking of me before we even met another time, but for now we're going to eat dinner and you're not going to offer me a single won ever again." Minseok took an aggressive bite of his food, which was admittedly pretty bland, and waited until he swallowed to add, "I said I didn't want a sugar daddy."

"Think of it as rent then, since you're letting me stay here." Jongin sounded like he still couldn't understand why Minseok didn't accept his original offer, and as he would often come to do Minseok just closed his eyes and let it go.

"If you want to pay rent, take half of my bill like a regular roommate."

So that's what Jongin does, and it's the only bit of money Minseok will accept from him.

Gradually rent turned into occasional groceries and keeping his fridge stocked with alcohol, but it never strays far from necessities. Minseok doesn't want to be a sugar baby, and nor does he want to be some millionaire vampire's charity case either.

Fortunately, despite the long, rocky start that characterizes Minseok's first month living with Jongin, the vampire fits into his daily routine without many complications. Jongin comes and goes as he pleases, and Minseok doesn't ask for details when he comes back.

Once he'd been concerned when he returned to his apartment to find it vacant, but Jongin proceeded to stroll in that very night unscathed. His only response to Minseok asking where he went was a casual shrug, and Minseok let that characterize how their dynamic was going to go. Jongin does his thing, Minseok does his thing, and sometimes those things overlap but they don't have to.

It's comfortable, and Minseok's only complaint is that Jongin likes the taste of his neighbor, but neither of them can really help that can they?

All in all, Minseok gradually comes to believe the time they'll spend together before the vampire passes won't drag on as long as he thought. And he means this in the most non-offensive-to-Jongin way. 

"Wait—doesn't the sun hurt you?"

Jongin chooses this moment to throw open the curtains. He looks back.

"Hm?"

Minseok winces. "Guess not."

Jongin doesn't come with a vampire manual, and Minseok usually doesn't think to ask until it becomes unavoidable. Sometimes too late.

The request for Jongin to open the curtains and let some light in to help wake him up had left his mouth before he could think of the consequences, but apparently those consequences are also nonexistent.

Minseok shakes his head. "Nothing, just another thing the movies got wrong."

Jongin joins him at the kitchen table and smiles. "The movies got a lot of things wrong. Just ask me what you want to know."

If Minseok knew what he wanted to know, he would.

"Uh... how do you feel about garlic?"

"Hm... it's okay."

So no aversion to garlic.

"Cool, maybe I'll use it to cook tomorrow." He doesn't know what to put garlic in, but it comes out anyways.

Jongin frowns. "Not sure if I want to taste bland food or a pure clove of garlic."

Minseok gapes. "Why are those the only two extremes?" Jongin at least has the sense to look sheepish.

"I've eaten everything you cooked me since I moved in."

Minseok gets up without a word and turns his back before huffing, "Maybe I just won't cook for you then."

He can practically hear the half smile on Jongin's face as he turns on the faucet and scrubs his plate more aggressively than necessary.

Jongin doesn't even apologize, the jerk.

Lu Han wants to talk to him. 

Sometimes they meet in the hallway or the elevator, and like friends turned neighbors exchange waves and greetings. It's always been comfortable conversing with Lu Han, and even after their break up Minseok still feels that way.

But recently their conversations have petered out on a metaphorical squiggly line, and while Minseok is waiting for the follow up he gets a smile just short of genuine and a bid goodbye.

He usually waits until Lu Han's door clicks shut to sigh.

Lu Han probably wants to know why Minseok is interested in Sehun—how Minseok could do this, why he keeps doing it. They haven't spoken about it directly since Minseok originally convicted himself. Once it happened again after that, Lu Han had stared at him and Minseok stood helpless as he prepared for a verbal lashing he wasn't entirely certain he could take.

Something had happened that made Lu Han deflate and say he'd talk to Minseok another time, and Minseok just cradled his weak, coward's heart in relief.

Their conversations got a little stiffer after that, but Lu Han put in effort to be normal so Minseok did too.

Their quick fix is cracking though, and Minseok is just waiting for it to break. He has a feeling this conversation is going to be it.

"Sehun's out, so we won't have to worry about being overheard." Lu Han gestures for him to sit down across from him at his kitchen table, and Minseok feels like he's stepped into a job interview he hadn't signed up for. Lu Han can tell, because his face pinches into a wince he does when he's guilty. Or concerned. Minseok knows it well and it doesn't make him feel any better.

"If this is about Sehun—"

"You're not fucking him," Lu Han cuts in, brutal enough to make Minseok flinch. Lu Han gets that pinched face again. Minseok wishes he'd try and hold it back from him more, after all they'd been through.

Neither of them speak, Minseok unwilling to confirm Lu Han's assertion just yet, so Lu Han continues. "I don't know how you think of me now, Minseok, but I still know you well enough. You wouldn't do that to me."

The words crash over Minseok, dousing him in cold shock. The petty grudge he'd been nursing ever since Lu Han bought his impulsive lie without question washes away completely.

His face must say it all, because Lu Han scoffs. "Wait, you really thought I bought your horrible lie? Minseok, you've never been good at lying. It was obvious you made it up on the spot."

The grace Minseok had felt towards his ex diminishes. "Why did you give me so much shit then when I did a walk of shame with Sehun?"

"Because I was mad," Lu Han shrugs. "That's why I called you over today. I knew it wasn't you, but that just means you're covering for someone and I still haven't figured out who."

 _He's living right next to you,_ Minseok so badly wants to quip, but he can't. He can't say anything, because nothing he can say will sound reasonable to Lu Han. Not even the truth, ironically.

"So you're still not going to give them up?" Lu Han asks. Minseok debates lying still, then his shoulders sag. The way he can't lift his head tells Lu Han enough.

His ex sighs, and the stiffness of his body deflates. "I knew it would end up like this. I had to try though..."

The defeat radiating from Lu Han causes a pang of sympathy in Minseok. With their pretenses out of the way, he feels comfortable enough to reach over and run Lu Han's shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he offers, because he has nothing else.

Lu Han smiles, but the corners are brittle. "I don't blame you. It's a problem between me and Sehun, and you just got dragged into it. Even now..." Lu Han covers Minseok's hand with his, gently removing it from his shoulder to lock their fingers together. "It's hypocritical of me, but I actually called you over because you're one of the only people I can... be like this with."

If he were the Minseok of a year ago, he'd have been torn up by Lu Han's admission. He knows what he means. Minseok has only ever been truly vulnerable for Lu Han, and Lu Han has only ever relaxed so fully around Minseok. There's a reason that, no matter how tentative, they have a friendship that's withstood the trials they put it through—the biggest, their relationship.

It's because Minseok is not who he was a year ago, angry but still yearning for the comfort of Lu Han, that Lu Han can speak with him like this.

"I understand. I promise... if I could tell you anything, I would." Minseok squeezes Lu Han's hand, and the other man's lip trembles.

"You would, wouldn't you?" he mumbles, probably to himself. "I trust you more than my own boyfriend; is that a sign—a sign that we aren't working out? Me and Sehun?"

Lu Han's eyes are wide and pleading, and Minseok aches for it. Aches for everything he's doing to Lu Han and Sehun, for a vampire that's set to die soon. Whenever soon is.

Jongin might outlive their relationship if this goes on.

But what can he do? He can say Sehun's not cheating, because he knows that's true. But what other explanation can he give for the fang scars? He can't just tell Lu Han: "It's because my roommate is a vampire, but don't worry he's dying. We make a pair, don't we?"

It won't go over well. 

"A lover has a big role in your life, but they aren't every role," Minseok says softly instead, untangling their hands to soothe circles into the back of Lu Han's with his thumb. "There can be people you trust more, while still being in love with Sehun. Love doesn't guarantee everything, Han."

Their past attempt at a relationship is an example. One Minseok chooses not to give. 

"I almost broke up with Sehun yesterday," Lu Han confesses, and Minseok stiffens. "It's not—fuck, it's not even the cheating; it's the lying that I can't stand. If he's unhappy, if we have a problem, if I'm not enough, then he can just tell me. I've given him plenty of chances, but he won't stop saying he doesn't remember."

 _Because he's telling the truth; he doesn't,_ Minseok thinks. He feels like he's drowning in all his helpless silence.

"Bullshit he doesn't remember," Lu Han presses on. "Selective amnesia right before he winds up passed out at our doorstep? Does he think I'm an idiot?" 

In Sehun's defense, he's come to Minseok a few times about this issue. They're not friends, exactly, but they became amicable enough after clearing up their initial misunderstanding. It was still a leap though when his other neighbor sought him out and asked Minseok what even happens when he drags him back to his doorstep.

Minseok had a lie prepared, and he still didn't feel good about it. Said Sehun called him, even though he didn't (Jongin did, from Sehun's phone, right before he ate to provide Minseok evidence for his explanation), and that Minseok has never arrived when Sehun has company so he doesn't know what Sehun is doing either.

They've built up a tentative alliance to catch Sehun in the act of whatever he's up to, and it will never go anywhere because Minseok is not on Sehun's side. He does, however, feel sympathetic when Sehun breaks down to him about how Lu Han is getting hurt because of Sehun and he wants to solve this quickly.

So no, Sehun doesn't think Lu Han is stupid. He's just foolishly honest in a way that's driving his own boyfriend away from him, and it's mostly Minseok's fault.

"Do you still want to break up with him?" Minseok asks gently, and Lu Han frowns. He slowly shakes his head, and Minseok rounds the table to pull his friend to his chest. They fit together in a way Minseok used to think was destined. Now he believes it's just a matter of compatibility, romantic or otherwise.

"If Sehun were cheating on you, don't you think he'd have an excuse prepared for if you asked questions?" He'd always been reluctant to point out the gaps in logic in their set up, considering it could lead to Minseok's lie being exposed. But preserving his—though technically Jongin's—secret doesn't seem nearly as important as restoring his friend's fracturing relationship now.

"Sehun is a good kid. He wouldn't lie to you; I think he really doesn't remember." Minseok knows so.

Lu Han sighs and pushes his face into Minseok's shoulder. "It feels wrong making you comfort me like this," he says, though he doesn't try to detach himself. "I know it's... a stupid issue, if you compare it to—"

"It's not stupid," Minseok cuts in. He knows what Lu Han is going to say, and he doesn't want to hear it. This is why they'd broken up, after all. "I care about you and your feelings, Han; they're important too. I'm still your friend you know."

Lu Han stares up at him with bleary eyes, and Minseok hates this look most of all. 

"You're such a good friend, Minseok. I don't know what I'll do without you."

"You'll live," he replies simply, but not unkind. Like he always does.

Lu Han just tears up, and Minseok rubs his shoulder. He can't let this arrangement keep going.

He'll talk to Jongin tonight.

"I don't see what the problem is. Don't you like this Lu Han guy? I'm doing you a favor."

Minseok sighs, and pinches the bridge of his nose. They're thirty minutes into their talk and have effectively gotten absolutely nowhere.

"I used to like him, and I still do but as a _friend_. And as his friend, I want to see him happy. Sehun fake-cheating on him is not making him happy."

Jongin yawns, and Minseok knows it's just because of dying vampire fatigue and not because he means to be rude, but it still feels offensive. Jongin raising a brow and replying, "Sounds like a them problem?" entirely warrants the pillow Minseok tosses at his face.

He doesn't even dodge, and Minseok has been told that that's another sign his life is ending: bad reflexes and slow reaction time.

"Just find someone else to drink from," Minseok practically pleads. There's no shortage of humans around. Jongin just pouts like a spoiled child.

"But he's so convenient..."

Even now Minseok doesn't understand Jongin's fixation on Sehun. He'd chalked it up to obscure vampire tastes he'll never understand, but now he needs to know the specifics if he's going to find a Sehun replacement.

"What's so special about him?" Hopefully it's nothing too impossible to find elsewhere.

"He's close, I like his face, he tastes good," Jongin lists, and he stares into space as if there's more before nodding to himself. Minseok, frankly, is underwhelmed.

"That's it? You can't find anyone else in this building that fits?" He'd feared something out of a fantasy, a rare trait that couldn't be replicated easily or that Minseok hadn't even heard of. Instead, Jongin might as well have described his ideal type for a hookup.

"Well..." Jongin eyes Minseok slowly, then shrugs. "I like type O negative blood, I think you humans call it. So he's like a delicacy."

It's as if fate is laughing at him. Minseok snorts.

"What a coincidence, I am too."

Jongin regards him silently for a long time.

"I know."

Lu Han and Sehun get better after that. Sehun no longer turns up amnesiac and bruised at their door, and Minseok's arms take a permanent vacation from hauling him up to their floor.

He gets separate reports from both sides that things are improving, and Lu Han seems convinced Minseok knows what's going on, but after a week he stops pestering Minseok to share it with him.

As much as he trusts and loves his friend, Minseok doesn't think they're ready to discuss his vampire issue.

"It really heals like a hickey," he muses, pulling down the collar of his shirt to inspect himself in the mirror. "No wonder Lu Han was convinced Sehun was cheating."

Getting bitten by a vampire was, all together, anticlimactic. It happened, then it was done, and Minseok passed out almost immediately after.

More than the biting, Jongin's attitude towards him stuck out more. Both before and after—and if he'd been capable of it, Minseok is sure Jongin would have tried during too—the vampire would not stop asking if he was okay.

"Let me help you to the kitchen," he'd insisted the next morning, a hand around Minseok's waist. The temperature of his skin made Minseok shiver, and Jongin looked at him apologetically as he whispered, "Sorry."

He'd found some vitamins to pop in his mouth then, drank some water, insisted he was fine, and still had Jongin hovering like a worried parent over his shoulder the rest of the day. When it was about time for Minseok to fall asleep, he'd even been tucked in, which he thought was overkill. He said so too, and Jongin only flashed his teeth at him.

"I've never treated a human so gently. I'm indulging in spoiling you."

Normally it'd strike Minseok as something he hates, but all he'd done was laugh and fall into an easy sleep.

Right now Jongin is asleep on the couch, and Minseok has a day of work ahead of him. Since he'd gained a houseguest, Minseok had considered their relationship agreeable but distant. They're... friends, vaguely, but not in the same way he's friends with Lu Han, and maybe not even to the level he has with Sehun either. But maybe somewhere after that, just slightly below Kyungsoo.

Jongin gathered in his lap, his lips mouthing at Minseok's neck, was the most intimate they'd ever been both physically and emotionally. Even more so if he counts his after treatment.

As Minseok applies concealer to look presentable for work, because the marks are still visible enough to need it, he lets his mind entertain where this would go if he were in a novel. This is when he'd start to fall in love with Jongin, his unwitting vampire roommate, isn't it? The thought makes him chuckle.

He doesn't know the vampire nearly enough to harbor feelings for him. It'd be pointless to anyways; one day Jongin will be gone and that'll be that, an abrupt end to what could never be.

They just don't have enough life between them.

He glances at his roommate's sleeping face before he leaves. It's never been so unsettling how Jongin sleeps like a corpse.

“How often is your limit?” Minseok asks one night, face half pressed into his pillow. Jongin is bustling around his room like it's his own, and in the past few weeks it’s felt like it is. Minseok is too tired to properly register what the vampire is even looking for.

“How do you mean?” Jongin asks.

“How long can you go without drinking?” His body feels heavy and drained, and he doesn’t like admitting he’s exhausted but… he’s sort of exhausted. When they’d started their arrangement, it’d been around once a week, and Jongin had to be coaxed into it. It took Minseok watching him, searching for the signs that his roommate was spacing out more often and drifting away from conversation, to finally just pull off his shirt and cock his head. And even then Jongin had been cautious, holding Minseok’s shoulders delicately even as Minseok insisted he get on with it.

He thought it’d continue like that until Jongin died, but eventually the vampire caught on and finally pulled Minseok aside of his own volition, the request clear in his gaze before he even opened his mouth.

“Go ahead,” Minseok had said, and for the first time he gasped when Jongin’s teeth pierced his skin.

A stubborn, and maybe a bit stupid, part of him is averse to saying he’s anything but okay. Jongin still asks, sometimes when he’s licking red from his lips sometimes when he’s pulling Minseok’s shirt back over his head because Minseok is too woozy to do it himself, and Minseok just mumbles that he’s fine. Or nods. Whichever he’s capable of.

He’s getting capable of less and less after their sessions, and it worries him. Just not enough to tell Jongin to stop.

It’s been two days since the last time. Minseok can barely keep his eyes open.

“Realistically… once a week. A little less, if I push it.”

Minseok hums, and even he doesn’t know what kind of meaning it has.

He doesn’t see Jongin sit down, just feels the bed dip.

A cold hand strokes the side of his face, and it feels refreshing instead of chilly. Minseok sighs, sort of turns his head into it.

“I can afford to push it. I’m sorry I’ve been greedy.”

“Mm.. s’okay,” Minseok mumbles.

His last thought before drifting off is that he’s glad Jongin suggested it, and that he didn’t have to ask. He wouldn’t have. Maybe Jongin knew that too.

Minseok wakes up on fire. No matter how he twists and turns, he can’t find a comfortable position and his blankets are suffocating him.

Amidst his attempts to settle down, the thought that he has to go to work strikes and he blearily reaches for his phone.

He manages to knock it off the side of his bed, and the effort of rolling off to go get it sounds like a monumental amount of effort he doesn’t have the energy for. But instead of coming from laziness, Minseok is a little concerned he really feels as if he can’t muster enough energy to do something as simple as get out of bed.

Jongin appears in the doorway, and just like last night his hand on Minseok's skin feels refreshing. He lifts a weak arm to keep Jongin from pulling away, oblivious to the concern etching into his roommates face. 

"Minseok, you're warm," he says. Minseok giggles, because that seems obvious. 

"Jongin, you're cold," he counters, before bursting into weak laughter again.

"I don't think this is normal," Jongin continues, but Minseok hears his concern and even in his slightly delirious state, he shakes his head. His whole body kind of shakes with him.

"M'fine, jus'stay..." Jongin's skin is like an oasis. "Lay with me."

He's not conscious long enough to tell if Jongin follows through or not.

In Minseok's nightmares, he's bathed in white. Sterile, empty dreams surrounded by a series of trill sounds that last just long enough to be grating.

Usually he wakes up and his world is bathed in color, or a darkness that's more soothing than ominous.

Instead, Minseok physically feels the effort he has to make to peel his eyes open, a familiar stickiness that he absolutely loathes. 

He hates medication and what it does to him. 

Soon enough a nurse enters his room, and Minseok is so tired it seeps into his bones. Into the base of his skull. He feels sick in a whole new way.

"Mr. Kim..."

He hates this. She can't tell him anything he doesn't already know.

Her voice mixes with the beeping of the heart monitor, and it's easier to ignore them both at the same time.

"You're angry."

Jongin doesn't phrase it like a question, but Minseok knows he's looking for confirmation. Because Minseok _is_ angry, he doesn't give it.

Absentmindedly, Minseok stirs the noodles he has boiling in a pot. He doesn't say a word.

"You were getting unnaturally hot, so I asked Lu Han what to do."

Minseok's mouth tightens into a line. It was, fundamentally, the right choice. A lot of coincidences clicked into place to allow Minseok to still be standing here, cooking noodles in his own kitchen—Lu Han being home and the hospital receiving a satisfactory amount of blood donations recently, on top of his roommate-transitioning-sugar-daddy's funds—and he should be grateful. He wants to be.

It's hard to drag it out of his chest though when death doesn't scare him and he has to live with his frustrations once more.

"You didn't do anything wrong," he finally relents. But he knows he doesn't sound convincing, or even happy. 

Jongin doesn't say anything back, and the sound of bubbling water masks the taunt silence between them. Minseok isn't even mad at Jongin; there's just no one else in the apartment to be curt with.

The noodles might be done, but the monotonous motion of picking them up and dropping them back in the broth sucks Minseok's attention in. They might be overcooked by the time he pours them into bowls, but at least Jongin can't complain about the flavor—or lack thereof—when he properly added all the seasoning.

A cold hand on his neck startles Minseok, and his chopsticks clatter to the floor.

A sheepish Jongin meets the glare he throws over his shoulder, and Minseok softens almost instantly.

"I didn't mean to scare you," he says, and Minseok breathes to calm his spiked heart rate before bending down to gather his lost utensils.

"It's fine," he replies simply, shaking his head. Somewhere in there should be It's nothing too, but it doesn't make it out of his mouth.

"I just wanted to say that I'll die before you."

Minseok nearly drops his chopsticks again, instead fumbling them before turning off the stove. "Where did that come from?"

"You always ask what 'soon' means, when I tell you about my condition. It means you're going to outlive me."

Minseok still doesn't know where this came from, but he finds his lips cracking into a wry smile anyways. 

"Is this supposed to cheer me up? It's a little depressing." 

Jongin gives him a small smile back. "But you're laughing."

He wasn't, but now Minseok is, giggling at the fallout. "Am not," he retorts anyways.

"You are," Jongin insists, and their back and forth has no bite, but it's punctuated with soft crinkles at the corners of their eyes—not crisp, but falling along well-worn lines.

Jongin pokes the corner of Minseok's lips. "Smiling," he says, a single word to end it all.

"I guess so," Minseok relents.

He'll go on to say it's a little fucked up that that worked, and Jongin will laugh and reply that he wouldn't have said it if he didn't think it'd work.

"What kind of impression do you have of me then?"

"It's nothing bad. You're just comfortable with death."

Minseok wants to say no one is comfortable with death, but then he ruminates on it a little more. If Death were sitting alone on a park bench, and Minseok's legs were tired, he thinks he'd sit down even if everyone else hurried by. He thinks he could sit there for awhile.

"Maybe you're right."

Most of the time, Minseok is too tired to do more than let Jongin pamper him after the wounds on his neck close up. At first Jongin had insisted he stop after the hospital incident, but Minseok's gut naturally rebelled.

"I'm fine, you just can't go overboard."

Jongin had bitten his lip. "But—"

"You can't go back to Sehun," Minseok reminded him.

"I wouldn't."

But Jongin had still looked guilty, and Minseok wished he were a bit more selfish. He'd said so, and Jongin had given him a long stare.

"I feel like I'm too selfish recently."

Minseok raised a brow. "Then be even more selfish, because I can't tell."

Eventually Jongin gave in, and the only difference between before and now was the frequency. Before Jongin had probably sought Minseok whenever he felt thirsty. Now, he approaches Minseok no more than once a week, and careful thought replaces the carelessness in his eyes when he asks.

Minseok doesn't get bone tired anymore, but that's not why he finds himself a little more satisfied with their new arrangement.

If he lies to himself, he'll say he doesn't know why and leave it at that.

If he's pressed to tell the truth, he'll recall how Jongin holds him close and savors every drop of his blood with a flash of heat, and then still insist he doesn't know.

 _There's just not enough life between us,_ he reminds himself.

Jongin said he'd die before Minseok.

But that doesn't stop Minseok, unusually lucid, from staring at Jongin with red still on his lips. Jongin's eyes are unfocused, yet he still looks at Minseok like he's the only thing in the world.

Minseok swallows, and Jongin's gaze drops to his throat.

Red bleeds into his irises like it drips onto Minseok's shoulder, and it's the first time he's seen the vampire without a trace of fatigue.

A cold hand against the back of his neck makes Minseok shudder; he hadn't realized how warm he was. He's usually not aware of himself by this point—when Jongin dips his head back down he expects the fresh sting of teeth digging into his flesh and pushes aside how risky that is in favor of baring himself wide open.

Instead, the soft lave of Jongin's tongue following the thin line of red from his shoulder to his neck makes Minseok gasp. He bites his lip as Jongin sucks at the wounds, the sting of exposed flesh easing until the skin has healed completely. 

Getting his blood drained must knock him the hell out if he really misses this every time. The wounds must be closed by now, but Jongin still draws skin between blunt teeth, nibbling lightly.

"Jongin..." Minseok starts, with no intention to finish the thought. He doesn't even have a thought to finish, really.

But Jongin must take it some way, because he pulls back and Minseok sees his struggle to regain focus.

"Hafta hold back..." he mutters, and it sounds more like a directive towards himself than Minseok.

"You were literally giving me a hickey," Minseok breathes. He doesn't know if he's upset, but his face feels hot and blotchy.

"I do that," Jongin admits.

"With Sehun too."

"...yeah."

"Bitch." Minseok doesn't mean to sound so breathless. "Coulda saved me a headache if you'd just held back."

Everything about Jongin is cold, but the words fanning Minseok's cheek are hot. "Sorry. It's a habit."

"Didn't know you were such a pervert," Minseok muses, all the while his thumb smears the traces of red along Jongin's lip. Like a passive wolf, Jongin remains still.

Minseok prods past the seam of his mouth, and Jongin licks the color from his finger.

Like a wolf, Jongin has teeth.

Minseok has good days and bad days at work. An art gallery shouldn't have much drama, and his co-workers aren't bad either. Minseok's problem doesn't have to do with either.

It's all in his head. He presents other people's works and surveys the lighting that best complements the masterpieces of other artists (real artists, a small voice tells him) all while knowing he's not this. He can only read the names on plaques; he will never get to write his own.

A vain part of him doesn't understand what these works have that his don't. If he knew, at least he would have a goal to work towards. At least he would have a direction. But Kyungsoo can never give him a straight answer.

"I'm a curator, Minseok," Kyungsoo tells him time after time. "Not an artist. I know when it has what I'm looking for, but I can't tell you how to achieve it. Artists just do it."

He's not cruel with his criticism, but the implication digs into his heart and pulls. It snaps his veins and leaves him coughing up the blood of his own failure, and rather than a poetically gory picture, his body is left a pitiful, bloody mess. 

_Artists just do it._

In other words, if he can't do it he's not an artist.

Minseok is sitting in a pool of his own broken dreams, and he only sometimes finds the will to get out.

When he returns home on his bad days, head heavy with all the thoughts he has no one to say them too, Jongin seems to know. He leaves Minseok alone, but Minseok feels his eyes on him.

It makes Minseok want to do something stupid. He wants to stare a wolf in the mouth and stick his hand in, just to feel what a bite is like.

He wants to stare down the edge of a cliff and take a step like the air will turn to glass under his soles.

"You're upset today," Jongin speaks up. Minseok sits on the couch and closes his eyes, head lolling back while a languid sigh escapes his chest.

"A little. You can tell?"

The couch dips next to him.

"Sort of."

Minseok blinks lazily at his housemate. Jongin is sitting a polite distance away, and Minseok eyes the space between them. It's not really necessary. Jongin also looks down, probably nothing more than following Minseok's gaze, but he still imagines his thoughts are shared.

"Why are you so far?" he murmurs. 

Jongin inches closer. 

"Closer."

Jongin moves with the enthusiasm of a caterpillar. 

"Closer."

Their thighs touch.

"Closer," he says again, while Jongin looks at him. Minseok might see pity in his eyes, but he ignores it.

"Minseok, what are you doing?"

His voice is near and intimate. So is his mouth.

"What we've been thinking about for ages."

Kissing Jongin tastes like free fall.

The funny thing about dying is that the closer it comes, the more you actually live.

Maybe this is why Jongin talked about his death—maybe this is the comfort Minseok finds in it. When the end is imminent, there's no need to waste time on pretense. Restraint has no place when there's such little time to spend, and mistakes feel less permanent.

This is a mistake, Minseok knows, but the heartbreak won't last.

In another life, he thinks he and Jongin would be something more than two creatures who found each other on the brink of death. In another life, they'd have more life between them. Jongin wouldn't die before Minseok. Because they switch from not-quite-friends into lovers like a dam unclogged, free flowing as if nature decreed it.

Now when Jongin is napping, Minseok doesn't have to admire his face. He can curl up next to him, and when he shivers Jongin pulls the blanket over to Minseok with a heavy arm.

Jongin still complains about Minseok's cooking, but at least he knows what the other's smile means now when he eats it all anyways.

What they haven't done is fuck, and Minseok knows why. Maybe.

The first night, Minseok had started crying in the middle of making out. Jongin noticed his tears first, and that was how they ended up in Minseok's bed, talking about shattered dreams and lost time.

It was cathartic and soothing, but not really sexy.

They kissed often, and it's the only thing they do that really makes Minseok think they're racing against time—only so long left before they can't anymore, only so many kisses to be had.

But it really is the only thing. As far as sex is concerned, they might as well have a few eras left. Sometimes it's Minseok's fault for being tired, other times it's kind of Jongin's for turning hickeys into bites and exhausting him, and most times it's straight up Jongin claiming his dying vampire stamina means he fatigues too easily. Granted he does sleep more these days, and once he did pass out in the middle of undressing Minseok, but still.

There must be more. And they don't have enough life between them to do this kind of dance.

"Vampires can't get hard, can they?" he says like it's a fact more than a question.

Jongin chokes. "Huh?"

Minseok has been thinking about this for awhile. He leans over the table, convinced. "They lack blood, so there's not enough in their body to get it up. So they can't have sex. That's it, isn't it?"

Jongin stares at him in a stunned silence that Minseok takes to mean he's correct. 

"I knew it—"

Then Jongin starts laughing. Loud, full bellied, chest-deep laughter that has him clutching his stomach.

"What? Am I wrong?" he asks, just a little offended because he'd been thinking about this for awhile and really thought he'd gotten somewhere.

"You are so wrong," Jongin tells him, and then the laughter gets downright offensive.

"Then why haven't we fucked?" There's no point being coy now.

Jongin doesn't answer, instead letting himself wind down from his laughing fit, closing it up with a cough and some final lingering chuckles. 

"I didn't know you were so eager," he says, and Minseok feels his patience running thin. He still hasn't answered the question.

"I'd like to fuck at least once before it makes me a necrophiliac."

"Just once?"

"If your nonfunctioning, undead dick can handle it."

"Who said it's nonfunctioning?"

Now Minseok wishes strangling Jongin would carry the threat of death with it. Instead, it might just make Jongin laugh at him even more.

"I get it, you don't want to. I'm leaving."

And with the dramatic flair of someone who once aspired to be a theater major instead of a painter, Minseok pushes his hair aside and begins to stalk towards the door.

But honestly he was expecting the arm around his waist the whole time, reeled back like a cat.

"Don't go," Jongin says into his hair. "I do want to."

The way Minseok's body relaxes at that single admission must say a lot, because Jongin turns him around and looks concerned instead of amused. "Did you really think I didn't?"

Minseok huffs. "It's not me who constantly said I was too tired."

"Our timing has just been really bad. We need to catch each other when we're both free and awake."

Jongin strokes his cheek with the back of his hand, and Minseok leans against him. "Are you awake now?"

"Of course—I just woke up."

"Me too."

Minseok stares at him, and Jongin raises a brow. "You have work."

"I'll call out."

"Just for this?"

"Work fucks me routinely; you don't."

Jongin's laughter is still audible in the background when Minseok calls Kyungsoo and says he's sick. Kyungsoo asking if he's in the hospital sours his mood a bit, but Jongin comes over to kiss the tension from his face and the result is a sudden day off where his undead boyfriend will finally turn him into a not-quite-necrophiliac.

Jongin accuses him of being unsexy when he says, "Alright, let's do it," before pushing Jongin down.

Minseok climbs on top of him and kisses him before he can say anything else.

"What else should I say?" he asks, and while waiting for Jongin's answer gets to work pulling his boyfriend's shirt up and over his head. Jongin shakes his head like a dog, and his fingers play with the hem of Minseok's button down.

"Something you wouldn't say to a quickie you sucked off in a club bathroom."

"That's awfully specific." There's a story there.

Jongin only tells it as, "I've had a long life of hedonism."

"So you want me to be more romantic?" Minseok asks. It's not as if he's opposed, but honestly his only serious relationship has been Lu Han. And Jongin isn't Lu Han.

"Maybe," Jongin hums. He untucks Minseok's shirt, but his fingers merely dance along the line of his bare waist. "Don't rush it. My 'soon' isn't so urgent that we'll only get to do it 'just once' you know."

"Still," Minseok insists, with no intention of finishing the thought. He's unbuttoning the shirt he'd just put on an hour ago with nimble fingers, and it's Jongin who pushes it off his shoulders. When Minseok goes to shake it off his arms though, Jongin stops him.

"Keep it on like this."

Minseok's nose scrunches. "It'll get wrinkled."

"I'll iron it."

"Do you even know how?"

Jongin looks at him like he's stupid. "Stop talking."

Minseok only listens because Jongin sucks on his collarbone and effectively shuts him up.

As per Jongin's request, Minseok's button up stays pooled at his elbows, but they both lose their pants in the languid exploration of each other's bodies, time crawling through honey every time their mouths meet. The vague sense of urgency Minseok went into this with dies out, and now everything just feels enough.

Time.

Jongin's touch.

His heart.

Minseok doesn't believe in perfection, but in this moment he wants for nothing more than what's right at his fingertips.

"How do you want to do this?" Jongin asks. Minseok shudders at the question alone, and thinks that he's been so deprived he could get off on the low timbre of Jongin's voice if he kept talking like that.

"This time, you—on top." Minseok can hardly hear his own voice over the blood throbbing in his ears. He wonders if Jongin can hear it too—if Jongin feels the warmth under his skin and tastes it on his teeth. 

He doesn't let it show either way. Instead, he noses at Minseok's neck, breathing in and nothing more, the cold air making Minseok shiver.

"I'll look forward to next time then. Anything else?"

Jongin is everywhere—covering his body, filling his head, seeping through his skin itself. Minseok just _wants_.

"Fuck me like you're dying," he murmurs absentmindedly. But while he hadn't thought at all before speaking, Jongin apparently has ideas.

The smile he gives Minseok is sharp from the corner of his lips to the tips of his fangs.

"Do you know what dying is to a vampire?" he asks, his lips brushing Minseok's skin in butterfly kisses with every word.

Minseok tries to shake his head, but he looks more like he's fidgeting.

"For humans, time speeds up when the end is near. They've never lived enough life," Jongin explains. He nips at Minseok's neck between words, cool hands casually roaming feverish skin.

"A year, two, three, it's always too short."

Minseok would normally be fascinated. He's never been, and never will be, more than human, but Jongin is a wealth of knowledge he doesn't tap into often. But the vampire's words float through his head in increments, a single breathy sentence—"end... life... too short..." The current of pleasure running down his veins, all the way to his toes, scrambles Minseok's attempts to piece it all together.

"It's a race to the finish." Jongin kisses the words into Minseok's shoulder. "Fast, desperate, frantic..." His hand had snuck down to Minseok's underwear, kneading the front at such a languid pace it blended in with every other stimulation.

Minseok's pupils dilate and his mouth drops open in a choked gasp when Jongin squeezes him tightly. The tips of Jongin's fangs scrape the shell of his ear and Minseok's back arches.

"But vampires don't die like that."

Jongin pulls back, and even in the dark his eyes still glimmer in the murky illumination of the moon. 

Minseok feels vulnerable and shaky, but his mind comes down from its high enough to look up and take in Jongin's words without distractions.

"Vampires live for so long, death is an end they anticipate. They want it to happen more and more, until it feels like it never will. The torture of eternity never feels as real as when it's about to end." Jongin lowers his face until their foreheads touch, and Minseok closes his eyes. It feels intimate in a way that's different from Lu Han.

"When all you can think about is wanting to die, a day lasts longer than a century. It's so slow it's maddening, but it won't stop. All you can do is wait until it's given to you.

"Should I fuck you like that?"

Minseok doesn't know what possesses him to immediately whisper, "Please."

He feels Jongin's smile against his neck, teeth pressed into flesh without breaking it as he sucks a bruise into Minseok's skin.

It's been a long time since he's been intimate with anyone. After Lu Han, everyone else felt so much like a replacement that Minseok couldn't bear to keep looking. But neither they nor even Lu Han could pull the sort of ache out of him that Jongin can.

Minseok mumbles rather than moans, his lips moving like whispers as he sucks in a breath and Jongin does something small and amazing with his mouth. Pleasure tingles all the way down to his finger tips, and every nerve feels alive with stimulation.

Jongin's cold hands soothe Minseok's sides, and his body thrashes with the chill.

"Please..." he murmurs, and Jongin blows on his ear just to watch him fidget.

"This is how it feels to die," is his only reply before he returns to giving Minseok enough to anticipate, enough to make him bite his lip and then whimper, but nowhere close to tipping him into the blaze he's almost craving.

Minseok is only human, so he doesn't know what a century is like. He doesn't know what it feels like to live the reality of eternity. But he thinks he'd lose his mind if he did.

It's not the human way of dying, but torture is the only word he can think of to describe how Jongin's tongue teases his chest, and just when Minseok thinks he can endure it—that there won't be _more_ anytime soon—Jongin bites down and makes his eyes water with want.

The first time he begs, it feels like lowering himself to a depth he's ashamed of reaching. This is what he'd asked for, yet he can't even take this much teasing. It's embarrassing.

But Jongin only chuckles and kisses his nose.

"Don't be so cute," he chides, and he's unfairly composed compared to what Minseok's head feels like. "It'll make me not want to stop."

Minseok actually groans, tears collecting in his eyes at the thought of this teasing lasting longer. His body thrusts weakly into the air, but that's all he gets—no relief, just the strain of his own hips because Jongin refuses to touch him more than he already has.

At some point Minseok spaces out entirely, his whole body a bundle of nerves that Jongin prods and prods without pushing entirely. If it's not his neck or his chest, then Jongin's head is between his thighs marking him with bruises only he'll know are there. He makes it down to Minseok's ankle, kissing the inside when he lifts it to his lips.

"You're flexible," he comments, and Minseok's head feels dizzy when he replies.

"Don't test it." Even his voice sounds groggy.

Jongin chuckles, but thankfully listens and lets his leg rest back on the bed. "Still with me?"

"Barely."

"I'll fix that."

Then a cool, wet finger prods at Minseok's hole, and all he can think is that he never noticed Jongin getting lube before desire creeps back into his brain. His hips urge Jongin's finger deeper, and the fact that Jongin doesn't pull away is such a relief that Minseok doesn't want to waste time. 

He reaches down to hold Jongin's wrist in place, and it's not nearly enough but it's leagues more than Jongin has given him. Fucking himself on Jongin's finger feels like a privilege, and he doesn't notice how his lover is watching him.

"For someone who was so concerned about my dick not functioning, you don't seem to need it." Minseok opens his eyes, and he can't really see Jongin beyond a blur but he tries to glare at him anyways.

"For someone with a dick, you don't seem to _use_ it," he gripes.

Jongin's laugh is too mirthful for what was supposed to be an insult.

"You wanted to get fucked like I'm dying; I'm just showing you what it feels like."

Minseok doesn't know what kind of person he was to agree to this, but it's not the person he is right now. Right Now's Minseok wanted to come twenty minutes ago.

"Show me you're alive then," he replies. "You haven't died on me yet."

Jongin pauses, and Minseok is about to get frustrated again when he blinks and his vision sharpens enough to meet Jongin's eyes.

His voice softens, though partially from confusion. "What?"

"I thought of something very cheesy," Jongin replies. He removes his hand, and Minseok lets him, but this time he hears the cap of a bottle opening and he doesn't mind as much.

"Like...?"

Jongin's eyes sparkle. "Don't get mad."

Before Minseok can reply, two fingers push into him and his back arches off the mattress. Jongin blessedly fingers him properly, and he's so focused on relishing that that he doesn't expect the sudden voice in his ear. 

"You make me feel alive again."

It hits Minseok all at once—the vulnerability of dying, the confrontation of mortality, the sheer power that lingers behind the admission of _I don't want to die_. His body tenses, and even as he twitches through the aftershocks of his orgasm, he still feels as if there's something missing.

There's a lack of shame, for the moment, at prematurely coming after all his big talk about Jongin's non-functioning dick. Then the lack of Jongin's dick itself. But his heart is still racing, unsettled, even with Jongin blinking down at him in surprise.

"Already?"

The single word shatters his afterglow haze, and Minseok's face burns. He's not missing shame anymore.

"Stop talking," he says, clipped and quick, but Jongin looks concerned instead of amused. It's almost even worse.

"Are you okay?"

"What did I say? Don't piss me off after I've just come."

Jongin still looks uncertain, and Minseok would love to find a nearby ditch to bury himself in if his bones weren't jelly.

"I was just overwhelmed," he adds, turning his face to the side.

"Do you still want to go on?" Jongin shifts slightly, and prickles of oversensitivity shoot down Minseok's spine. He'd been a bit gone for a second, but he does remember Jongin petting his prostate through orgasm and his hand hasn't really moved since. Now though, it's almost painful and makes his whole body shudder.

"Do I look like a blueballer to you?" Minseok fires back. He'd somewhat worked hard for this so he's damn well going to see it through. "I'll make you come three times to make up for it."

Jongin slowly starts moving his fingers again, and Minseok's legs tremble with it but the discomfort is starting to fade.

"For humans and vampires, that's a very ambitious goal."

"Just tell me I'm unsexy and go then."

Jongin crooks his fingers and Minseok jolts.

"I don't like lying."

And for some reason that makes Minseok blush, so he closes his eyes to try and will it away. "Then fuck me and we can work on it."

Jongin laughs softly, and his fingers scissor inside Minseok while he squirms part in pain, part in... not quite pleasure but something more tolerable.

By the time he's ready, the pain has subsided and Minseok feels woefully empty when Jongin pulls back to roll on a condom.

"Vampires need it?" he mutters, breathless and a little worn out honestly.

"I'm polite," Jongin corrects him. "And don't risk it."

Minseok just grunts, and when Jongin asks if he's ready, he gets the cheeky response of _literally an hour ago_ from Minseok.

Jongin's lips are quirked into a smile, right before he pushes in and his face slackens the deeper he goes.

Minseok only watches for a second before his own eyes are closed and he tilts his head back, moaning as he feels more and more of Jongin.

His hands find Jongin's back, and he pulls the other over him. Jongin falls willingly, and for a moment there's only the heat of their breathing between them.

"Do you want me to move?" Jongin asks, and Minseok considers. It'll probably be okay, but first...

"I just like feeling you," he replies, and he's glad they're close enough that Jongin doesn't have a clear view of his face. It's probably doing something embarrassing. "For a little longer."

"Okay." Jongin kisses the skin closest to him, Minseok's shoulder. "I'm here,” he whispers.

And he is, isn’t he? Minseok presses the pads of his fingertips into Jongin’s skin, solid. Cold and very dead too. Dead and dying, but they’re all doing that. Every tomorrow is a yesterday they won’t be able to live again, just like tonight is a night they’ll only see once.

“You’re here,” Minseok echoes, like he’s the one speaking it into reality. He notices now, with their chests pressed together, that Jongin doesn’t have a heartbeat. He’d known before, objectively, but the reality thrums in his ears when only one of their hearts are racing. He wonders, not for the first time, if Jongin feels the blood in his veins, what it does to him.

Minseok eventually pulls Jongin’s face towards him, and Jongin is the one to close the gap between them softly. What starts as slow and romantic gradually turns long and dirty, Minseok groaning when Jongin’s tongue drags along the roof of his mouth. It’s natural, then, when Jongin makes little circles with his hips and it adds a pleasant buzz to what feels like drowning in him.

They separate with a sloppy gloss of spit on their lips, and the way Jongin’s eyes seem piercing even in the darkness is what really means him jump, though a purposeful snap of Jongin’s hips is a reasonable contender.

“Is this okay?” Jongin asks, a question Minseok has heard for what feels like an eternity. But for once, strain overcomes concern and Minseok gets the feeling his boyfriend is forcing himself to ask out of courtesy. He’s never been so eager before.

The thought makes Minseok smile.

“No,” he breathes, and the look on Jongin’s face is genuinely alarmed, so he quickly adds, “Not when I can close my eyes and imagine a dead fish in your place.”

Jongin looks stunned, and then his eyes crinkle as he smiles. “Stay with me then, yeah?”

It’s unreal how he can change the look in his eyes from affectionate to dangerous with just the quirk of his lips and angle of his chin. Minseok’s heart leaps just before his hands claw at the sheets and stress the threads.

Jongin holds his hips in place, and the stabs of pleasure wiping conscious thought from his mind have Minseok’s mouth falling open around choked out moans. He loses awareness of where he is, body jerking as Jongin finds a new way to send sparks behind his eyelids. Minseok doesn’t feel himself crowd up against the headboard, but he comes back to Jongin dragging him back down the bed, harder onto his dick, and the ease he pulls Minseok towards him isn’t human.

“Touch me,” Minseok gasps. His cock is aching, but he doesn’t even have the strength to wrap a hand around himself to relieve the pressure. “Please, _Jongin_ —”

“A little longer,” Jongin bites out, not faltering a second in the brutal pace he set for himself. 

“I want to come, please, please _let me_ —” Minseok squeezes tears from his eyes, and he cries out when Jongin pulls him up and lets him fall into his lap. Minseok’s legs spasm around him, and his chest feels heavy with desire.

“Jongin, Jongin…” The other’s name falls from his lips like a mantra with every shallow thrust of his hips, a prayer and a request in one. 

“You don’t know what you do to me,” Jongin mutters. His own deep groans are clipped with tension. “ _Fuck_ —” His face presses against Minseok’s neck, and it’s only now that Minseok realizes his fangs had come out. He can’t imagine since when. Jongin breathes him in like he’s dying.

“Do it,” Minseok rasps. His head falls to one side, and he can feel Jongin hesitating before instead of pain in his neck, pleasure short circuits Minseok’s sense as a hand starts pumping his neglected cock.

“ _Oh my god_ —” He’s going to come, the sudden tension in his gut taking even him by surprise, and just as the crest of his orgasm begins to wash over him Jongin bites down and Minseok screams. 

He can’t tell if he’s alive when he’s next blinking at the ceiling. The ceiling that he at least thinks is a ceiling. Reality bleeds back into his mind through a film of honey, slow and sweet.

His body is limp and boneless, and Jongin arranges him with the grace of a puppeteer commanding dolls to dance with a flick of his finger. The world still spins when Jongin lifts his leg, and Minseok has to struggle to refocus his vision.

The first thing he notices is how red Jongin’s eyes are. And how they’re pinning him with a stare that’s both looking at him and not. He’s not sure if it’s fear or arousal making his soft dick twitch.

“You’re gorgeous,” Jongin says, like he’s transfixed. His eyes don’t leave Minseok’s even as he mouths down his calf. “So good for me.”

Minseok makes a noise of embarrassment, and he squirms until Jongin too quickly stills him with a hand to his waist. The hold is commanding instead of loving.

“Jongin?”

“I love you.”

Minseok freezes. The objective part of his mind knows he should be happy; it wants him to be happy. Except his heart stutters, and he’s not sure it’s a good thing.

“What—”

He watches Jongin open his mouth, and realizes what he’s going to do a moment before it happens.

If Jongin hadn’t had such a strong grip on his leg, Minseok would have kicked him in the face. Pain shoots through him from his thigh, and Minseok cries out. More than the pain though, he’s far more aware of the black spots invading his sight and the sluggishness his body is getting weighed down with.

“Jongin, stop…” He’s having difficulty sounding stern. 

“Stop... “

Jongin bites harder, and Minseok feels the hot trail of fresh tears before he realizes he’s crying.

“Jongin!”

All at once, Minseok’s body falls onto the mattress, a puppet with its strings cut, and his mind spins. He’s not aware of where Jongin is until he hears a sound—off to the side, towards the wall. He’s too weak to sit up and look, but listening in silence, the sounds turn into sobs and Minseok knows who they’re from.

He doesn’t know exactly what happened, but something went wrong.

Minseok loses consciousness before he can see Jongin plastered to the wall, fangs buried in his own wrist.

Something cool presses against Minseok’s forehead. It drags down the side of his face along his neck, down his shoulder…

It feels like a towel.

Minseok squeezes his eyes shut tighter, and then peels them open. A blurry figure is hovering above him.

“Jongin…?”

“Not quite,” Sehun replies.

Minseok squints, and he takes in more of the details around him. It’s daytime, sunlight filtering in through the window. He’s still in his room, but he’s wearing… more than the single white shirt he’d had on before. When he and Jongin had had sex. Which ended… disastrously, somehow.

Not that he knows why. He doesn’t suppose Sehun can tell him either.

“Where’s Jongin?”

“You mean your roommate you’ve been hiding for months? Dunno.”

Minseok almost protests that Sehun does know him—his mind doesn’t settle on if he’s talking about when Sehun had been Jongin’s snack of choice, or when Jongin had gone to their apartment to get Minseok to the hospital—but then he remembers. Jongin erases the memories of himself from everyone he meets. He’d said so awhile ago, citing that he didn’t want to be missed when he was gone. It’d put Minseok in an awkward position if his roommate suddenly disappeared.

So Sehun, in fact, does not know his roommate that he’s met several times. Until now, that is.

“Why’re you here?” Minseok tries instead.

Sehun sighs, and he stares at Minseok. “How do you think I found out about your hidden roommate? He came knocking for Lu Han, but he’s out right now so it was just me. He said to watch you, and then just… left.” Sehun shrugs. “I figure he’s coming back, but fuck if I know when.”

Minseok sighs, then relaxes back into his mattress. So it hasn’t been an outrageous amount of time, like a week. At most, a day or so.

Sehun scratches his neck in the silence. “So uh… you doing okay? I figured it had something to do with… you know.” He waves his hand a little awkwardly.

Minseok has no idea what he means. The vampirism? That’s definitely a problem, but it’s not one he should be talking about with Sehun.

“Huh?”

His unwitting caretaker shakes his head. “Never mind, I’m not… the one to talk about it.”

Just then, the door clicks open and Sehun rises instantly. His back is pin straight, and Minseok wonders what kind of scene Jongin had put on to make Sehun react like this.

Jongin, for his part, also looks surprised to see Sehun upon entering Minseok’s room, but he recovers and stops in front of him.

“Thank you,” he says simply. Then he stares, really stares at Sehun, and continues, “You heard a noise, so you came to check on Minseok, and you think he’s a little sick but not worth a hospital trip. Tell Lu Han to come if he’s worried. Forget me.”

Sehun nods, but it feels more like a zombie tilting its head at the beck of a master poking it. He walks out without another word, and then it’s just Minseok and Jongin.

“You can sit,” he offers, when neither of them move. Minseok for obvious reasons, Jongin for less than obvious. 

The vampire does so wordlessly, and Minseok tries to think of something else to say when he’s spared the effort.

“How are you?” Jongin’s eyes are soft and brown again, but guarded in a way Minseok isn’t used to.

“Tired,” Minseok answers honestly. “But, fine. Better that I’m not in a hospital.”

Jongin nods. “I know you hate them.”

Minseok cracks a smile. “There’s my stalker.”

Jongin frowns, but the pinched expression looks better on him than the grave one he’d been wearing before. “You told me yourself you hate them; I don’t stalk you.”

“You stalked me enough,” Minseok points out. “You knew about my work before I told you.” 

Jongin’s frown turns more into a sulk. “That's different.”

“How?”

“I was—” Jongin cuts himself off. “I was looking for someone specific.”

Minseok raises a brow. “Really? An artist or something?”

Jongin gets awkward, and Minseok feels like he should be wary but there's only curiosity in his eyes when he looks for an answer in Jongin.

“Someone who wouldn't miss me.”

Minseok doesn't understand. “Why wouldn't I—”

The guilt in Jongin’s face suddenly makes sense. A cold wave passes through him, and Jongin won't meet his eyes anymore. Minseok looks down anyways. His hands have automatically clenched into fists. 

“Oh.” It feels like there should be more bitterness coming out, words as biting as the frost in his veins, but nothing comes to mind.

He waits for Jongin to say something else—an excuse, an apology, whatever. But they remain in silence, and Minseok takes it upon himself to break it.

“I should have figured. It's all people see in me anyways; I'm used to it.” 

Minseok has felt a lot of things die in him, but it's the first time like this. A flower must be so lonely when it wilts—one petal at a time, with the evidence of its ruin at its feet.

Jongin grabs his hand, and Minseok shivers but for once it does nothing to deter Jongin.

“That's not why I said I love you.”

Minseok can't look at him. He chooses the sheets instead. “Oh, you remember that? I wasn't sure how much lucidity I should expect.”

“Minseok, look at me.”

He feels childish, but he doesn't want to. “No.”

“Minseok.”

“I don't want to.”

He hears Jongin sigh. “I wanted to say this facing you, but I won't force you to do anything you don't like anymore.”

Minseok almost questions what he means, but the throbbing that hasn't exactly faded from his thigh tells him his answer.

“It wasn't a mistake that I pestered you to take me in,” Jongin starts. “But I wasn't supposed to feel like this either.”

“Like what?” Minseok whispers. Jongin lowers his voice too, like it's a secret so dear it’s sacrilege to say it aloud.

“Like I want to live longer.”

Minseok looks up, and Jongin steals his breath in an instant. His eyes well up.

“A human life has never felt so long,” Jongin rasps, as if he's sinned at an altar.

“Even mine?”

Jongin squeezes his hand. “Especially yours. You will outlive me, Minseok, and somehow I still think I can change that just because I want to.”

“How do you know?”

“Instinct. Like how I know I'm dying; it's a feeling I have.” Jongin inches closer, until his face is so near Minseok can see it even through the blurry film of tears. “It's rarely wrong.”

“It could be,” he insists, even when the doubt bleeds into every word.

But instead of calling him out, Jongin’s lips crack into a smile that feels more fragile than the thinned ice atop a pond.

“It could be,” he echoes. “I'm sorry for hurting you.”

“It’s okay.”

Jongin shakes his head, cheek rubbing against the sheets. “I lost control. This isn't a good time to mention it, but you're incredibly dangerous for my will.”

Minseok doesn't expect that. “I am?”

“Mm,” Jongin hums. “I knew the moment I walked in and could smell you everywhere. It's why I went after Sehun, to tide myself over.”

This is new. Minseok hadn't imagined there was a reason for Sehun beyond convenience and taste, like Jongin had said. It's a little flattering, in a tragic way. Usually people don't admit these kind of weaknesses until they've run out of future chances.

“Did I meet your expectations?” Minseok asks, trying to lighten the mood. Jongin certainly tries to reciprocate.

“You exceeded them.” Jongin wipes a stray tear from Minseok’s face, one Minseok hadn't been aware of falling. His hand lingers.

“I never thought a human could taste so delicious.”

Minseok had promised himself a long time ago that he would not live to die. He wouldn't compare today to a tomorrow he might not have; every human lives like that anyways. Sudden accidents, unforeseen misfortune, bad luck, anything could end everything without notice. But everyone doesn't live like they're dying, so Minseok told himself he wouldn't either.

He hadn't considered living like someone else is dying.

Every day with Jongin turns precious. Minseok finds himself noticing more and more details about his lover, and he's aware with devastating clarity that he will lose every one of them.

Jongin catches him staring, and he must know why, but unlike Minseok, Jongin only smiles. If it were Minseok, he'd bristle and snap; it'd probably escalate into a fight. But Jongi isn't like him.

Jongin only treats Minseok more tenderly, and Minseok thinks, this too he'll lose.

He wishes he could be the kind of person who loves life enough to cherish what's left. Instead, he's reminded how much of a quiet friend Death has been.

“Bite me there, again,” he pants, one leg over Jongin’s shoulder while his thigh trembles with the effort to hold back his orgasm.

Jongin is a vision above him, focused intently on Minseok like he wants to eat him. And he does, Minseok knows, because when Jongin is really gone he's started to lose control of his tongue and groan about how much he wants to drain Minseok dry to keep him forever. Wants to feel drunk on something sweeter than wine, a more magnificent feast than an artist could imagine.

 _I want to devour you. No one else could properly savor the privilege like I could,_ had made Minseok come harder than he ever has on one memorable night.

“Are you sure?” Jongin’s voice is tight, and his hips don't pause their rhythm.

Minseok groans. “Do it.”

He feels the rush of Jongin’s lips like a shock down his spine, and then his body goes taunt when the points of Jongin’s fangs break skin. He comes freely then, letting the pleasure override the brief pain and coming down to the lave of Jongin’s tongue against the inside of his thigh.

It's overall a much better experience than the first time they'd done it, and Minseok is conscious when Jongin has his fill and is licking the blood from his lips as he takes his own pleasure plowing into Minseok without restraint. 

There's a certain kind of relief that comes with Jongin slumping over him, mutually spent.

“You've gotten good at not knocking me out,” Minseok muses, a heavy hand petting Jongin’s hair.

“I'm working hard,” Jongin mumbles, barely audible.

Minseok chuckles. “I can tell.”

“Don’ tease…”

“I'm not.”

If he had more energy, he'd like to paint. Minseok feels the pull of inspiration at his fingertips, and it's been so long since he's genuinely wanted to pick up his brush. Not because he's racing against time or because he wants it to show up in a gallery; he just has something in him he wants to create—wants to express beyond the confines of his mind.

Next time, maybe.

“Let me top, when we do this again.”

Jongin nods against him.

Minseok hadn't wanted to jinx it, so he never said it aloud, but he'd hoped Jongin would make it for his birthday. This used to be a day of mixed feelings for Minseok, a reminder of a brand of special he doesn't really have. When he spent it with Lu Han he'd been happy, but afterwards he'd been lonelier than ever, and recently it's been a day that simply reminds him how alone he is.

A day isn't so special when no one but him celebrates it. He'd gotten used to splurging his budget, which no one but him knew, and ordering something expensive at a restaurant—a cake never mentioned. 

He feels like celebrating this year. He goes out of his way to buy a small cake on his way home from work, after the gift of a cupcake from Kyungsoo on his lunch break that he'd accepted graciously for once.

When he walks into his apartment, it's unusually dark. For a vampire, Jongin has a penchant for wasting electricity and driving up their lighting bill by keeping them on even when he's napping.

Then the crackle of a lighter draws his attention, and he sees Jongin’s face illuminated behind a single candle.

He starts to sing, and two other voices join in, to Minseok’s shock.

“Happy birthday to you…”

Jongin walks closer, until Minseok can see his eyes clearly.

“Happy birthday Minseok…”

Lu Han adds a high pitched _Minseokie_ to his part, but then he and Sehun quiet for Jongin to whisper, “Happy birthday. Make a wish,” like they're the only ones in the room. 

Minseok doesn't know what he wishes for. He blows the flame out, and the last thing he sees before the darkness covers everything is Jongin’s smile.

Then his lights come back on, and Lu Han is racing to slap something on his head—a birthday cone he can't escape.

“Happy birthday!” Lu Han cheers, and Sehun pats Minseok on the back with as much of a smile Sehun has ever given him. 

“Happy birthday.”

Minseok, overwhelmed, doesn't have anything to say beyond awestruck nodding.

Jongin had put the cake down on the table, and then came over to remove Minseok’s jacket from his shoulders. Absentmindedly slipping his arms from the sleeves, it's only when he has to accommodate for his grocery bag does he realize:

“Oh my god, I bought myself a cake too.”

All four of them, Minseok included, burst into laughter, Lu Han even doubling over.

“We’ll eat them all! I'm sure you didn't get a big one,” Lu Han assures him, and so Minseok’s admittedly small cake joins his normal sized one on the table as Sehun offers to cut them.

“How did you know?” he asks Jongin softly, spared a moment to themselves.

“Lu Han came over and threatened me,” he says with all the nonchalance of discussing the weather.

“He knows you now?”

Jongin hums. “I’ve started to want to try acting like I won't disappear any day.”

Minseok puts a hand over the one Jongin placed around his waist and squeezes it lightly. It's the first time he's felt like crying on his birthday from something that doesn't make his chest hurt.

Minseok gets served a bigger piece of cake than he can eat, but in a shocking turn of events half of it ends up on his face from what started as a simple pinch of frosting smeared on his nose. Of course he had to retaliate, which challenged Lu Han to be more ambitious, and that drew in Sehun and Jongin by default after errant bits of cake ended up on the wrong targets.

The normal sized cake therefore only ended up partially eaten, with the rest going in the trash after being scraped off faces and clothes.

“It's a shame,” Jongin whispers to him as he's washing cake from Minseok’s cheek with a damp cloth. “I was hoping to save the cake you bought to eat it off you.”

Minseok slaps him. “Don't be gross, our friends are right there.”

“They are, huh?” Jongin repeats, unconcerned. He pauses. “Our friends.”

Minseok blinks. Then he tilts his head curiously. “Yeah. If you want them to be.”

“They think I moved in a week ago.”

Minseok snorts. “Then I've been sneaking you around for months before you finally settled down.” 

“I really took my time deciding then.”

Minseok pecks his cheek. “Mhm, you're lucky I let you in.”

“It's present time!” Lu Han calls from the living room. “I already told Jongin we aren't accepting people as gifts.”

Minseok raises a brow at that, and Jongin snorts. “I was joking and he took me seriously.”

Minseok shakes his head as he sighs and returns to their company. “No, he knew you were joking and chose to take you seriously.”

It's been a long time since he's had so much fun with this many people. Lu Han gifts him a palette of watercolors, telling him those had been better than his “depressing oil paints,” while Sehun offers a pair of socks as a joke before handing over a universally acceptable gift card for fried chicken. Jongin hands him a box so meticulously wrapped Minseok doesn't want to open it.

“Later,” he promises. He cradled it in his hands like it's precious. “I'll open it when we’re alone.”

To which Lu Han makes gagging noises and Sehun snorts softly. “Just tell us to leave, no need to be coy about it.”

And they joke back and forth for a bit, before Sehun and Lu Han really do leave and the apartment quiets down, not just in noise but atmosphere as well. Even with two less occupants though, it doesn't feel empty when he still has Jongin with him.

“When are you going to open your gift?” Jongin asks.

Minseok sets it on the table then pulls Jongin close.

“After.”

He stops Jongin’s response with his tongue, and urges him in the direction of their bedroom, pushing him back onto their mattress.

“You want to top tonight?” Jongin is already pulling off his shirt.

“Yeah,” Minseok replies briefly before he busies his mouth sucking marks into Jongin’s exposed chest.

He has something he wants to do after.

It's not the first time they've done this, but Minseok's heart is clogged with emotion, and he wants to share it with Jongin in the most intimate way he knows how. This time it's him bent over Jongin, relishing the right heat around him and saying shit he'd never dream of otherwise.

“If I could give all my blood to you, I would.” Anything if it'd mean Jongin could live.

Jongin gasps, and his teeth are sharp. “Not—” His words cut off into moan, and Minseok wants to hear that more than his answer, so he thrusts harder and Jongin makes beautiful music into his ear.

“Not worth it,” Jongin finally forces out, the strain tightening his voice. “Don't wanna live—without you.”

Minseok stops, and their heavy breaths fill the space left between them. He stares down at Jongin, and his lover stares back with the most tragic kind of affection. Minseok’s expression breaks.

“Me neither.” He kisses Jongin before the tears start, and they're both too busy chasing pleasure to pay much mind to the wetness that falls into Jongin’s cheeks.

For once, it's Jongin passed out while Minseok gathers himself together, alone in the world of the waking. Though recently Jongin has been getting sleepier too, sometimes knocking out at the same time as Minseok.

It helps Jongin hadn't bitten him tonight, though Minseok wouldn't have said no if he asked.

Stretching his sore legs as he slips out of bed after rearranging Jongin to sleep comfortably, Minseok pulls on loose sleep pants before heading to the kitchen. He downs a glass of water, and it's like the world clears with his mind.

As the only breathing creature, the space finally seems empty. Not lonely though, for once, but empty enough that there's a lot of room for thought.

He'd planned to wait for Jongin to wake up, maybe open his gift in the morning, but while Minseok stares at the beautifully decorated box he can't help but feel the time to open it is now. Even if he's alone, he's always tended to cherish things by himself best.

Carefully, without undo damage to any of the ribbons and paper, he reveals what Jongin had bought him.

It's so beautifully ironic, Minseok feels like crying again. His hands trace the shape of the box, and he goes to his studio to store it in a cabinet where he knows he'll never go back to open it.

Exchanging it for his used set of paints, Minseok sits before a blank canvas and for once knows exactly how he wants to fill it.

For awhile after that, Minseok starts categorizing days into happy ones and sad ones. He cries more often recently, when reality catches up, and he thinks he's only this weak because it's someone else’s life on the line.

Those are the sad ones. The happy ones are the regular ones. As regular as life with a vampire can be, anyways.

Jongin has been absent more often too. He'd made a bit of a fuss when he'd asked Minseok to sit down on the couch with him, then fidgeted like a schoolboy about to confess his crush. Or a grown man trying to decide how to word a break up.

“Are you trying to leave?” Minseok finally asks him straight, after several misdirections. Jongin sits up straight. 

“No! Not—not really. It's more like… permission to cheat?”

Minseok blanches. “What.” It's not a question as it comes out flat and disbelieving. Jongin’s own eyes widen and he shakes his head.

“I mean, only kind of. I just—recently I'm getting hungrier, and I know I can't feed from you too often, so I hold back, but…” He bites his lip, and Minseok’s body sags when he finally understands.

“You want to go out and find other people to drink from,” he confirms, and Jongin nods his head guiltily, like he really had cheated on Minseok.

Minseok sighs. “That's not cheating when you need to do it to live. As long as you're not fucking them when you do it, I do want you around as long as possible, you know. It's okay.”

Jongin still looks uncertain, but he settles closer to Minseok, fitting against him more comfortably. “I was worried you'd be upset anyways. I don't want to make you unhappy.”

Affection blooms in his chest. Minseok draws his face towards him and kisses him, pulling away slowly. “Thank you for considering me,” he says softly. “You have my permission. I like you alive and fed.”

They've come beyond the point of semantics, where Jongin has always been more dead than alive.

So Jongin is absent more often than before, and when he comes home groggy and occasionally with a stranger’s blood smeared in the corner of his mouth, Minseok wordlessly cleans it off and tucks him into bed.

He'd be lying if he said he isn't a little bit jealous—he has no desire to watch Jongin mouth at someone who isn't him—but Minseok doesn't begrudge Jongin. It's just a new part of their reality.

What really bothers him is how it feels like one step closer to the end.

It's only ever when Jongin is asleep that Minseok retreats to his studio and pours his private feelings into colors and brush strokes.

Normally they avoid talking about it, but nighttime when they're both swathed in blankets and drowning in each other’s presence makes Minseok feel more untouchable than usual. He feels braver to ask the questions he might not like the answers to.

“What is it like when a vampire dies?”

"I’m not sure," Jongin admits. “I've never seen it.” Minseok shifts, then looks at him curiously.

"Then how can you tell you are?"

Jongin doesn't answer, but he brings his hand up to card through Minseok's hair and Minseok presses his cheek into his pillow, comfortable.

"I know what dying is like, but few have seen the actual end. We don't exactly discuss it when we meet another one of us."

Minseok feels for Jongin’s heart through his skin, and traces his jaw with his fingers. "Does it scare you?"

"A little." Jongin looks more sad than scared. "I'd wanted it to be a lonely death. I didn't want to cling to existence until the last second—it felt pathetic and mortal."

"Then why did you ask to live with me?" If Minseok had left him on the street, Jongin could have stayed there.

Jongin chuckles. "I wanted to die lonely, not alone. I thought if I just had a roommate, it'd be a temporary arrangement and a clean break after."

Minseok hums, and the small gaps that'd remained in his understanding of Jongin close up.

Jongin must sense it, because he looks guilty. "Do you... are you still upset? That I chose you because—"

"No," Minseok cuts in, quick and decisive. "It was your way of being kind, so that you won't be missed either." His smile is rueful. "Though it just sounds sad to me."

Jongin doesn't smile back, and his hand slides down to Minseok's neck. He probably doesn't even need to do that to feel his pulse though.

"Will you...?" breaks the veil of silence that fell between them. Minseok blinks.

"Will I what?"

"Miss me."

Minseok stares at him, then frowns. He scoots himself closer until his body is flush against Jongin's, pushing his face into his chest. 

"Don't say that."

They don't exchange another word, but Minseok holds onto Jongin all night and wakes up to dried tear tracks on his face.

The next night greets him with Jongin's fangs pricking his neck, his body solid above Minseok as his back arches off the bed and he digs his fingers into the plains of Jongin's.

He enjoys another morning blinking awake to Jongin's face, streaked with a line of sunshine. Soft until his alarm blares, scaring them both.

Another to the smell of food that actually has flavor.

A daytime nap bleeds into a crook in his neck because he chose a bad position to sprawl atop Jongin.

Another night.

Jongin feeds so much Minseok gets dizzy on his feet and tells him to stop. Jongin does.

Another morning.

Jongin sucks on his finger, and when Minseok asks why he's so needy Jongin tells him it helps calm him down.

And another.

And another.

And another.

Until Minseok wakes up to roses. Like they'd been plucked from countless stems, bright red petals cover the space Jongin had occupied.

Minseok drags a slow hand through them, and they're velvety and soft like Jongin's skin last night. His cheeks burn fresh as feeling wells up in his throat.

"There shouldn't be anything beautiful about your death," he rasps, with no one to listen. His hand moves as if through water, back and forth.

The petals ripple while the thorns wrap around his heart. 

There's small mercies in the way a vampire dies. There's no body Minseok has to awkwardly explain to police, and there's no risk of a stench if he wants to keep Jongin’s remains with him. In fact, the petals might even make the apartment smell nice if Minseok hadn't bottled them up and followed a preservation guide he'd found on the internet.

Buying the scrapbook that would serve as the urn for Jongin’s remains is a fairly numb process.

He calls out of work too often to be acceptable, but Kyungsoo hasn't told him he's fired yet. He only sounds increasingly concerned, and Minseok can't find the words nor the will to properly explain.

Most of his day is spent in his studio. But most of that time is not spent painting. It's not because he’s lost inspiration, but every time he picks up his brush, he only manages a few strokes before he hesitates. It's almost done, truthfully, but once it's finished there's a void of darkness where the future sits.

What's beyond this painting? What's left of his life? Minseok is scared to find out. He's scared he already knows.

He gives up for the night and curls around himself in bed. Like usual, he leaves the space on the other side empty.

Meticulously, one by one, each page of the scrapbook is pressed with rose petals perfectly preserved.

Minseok holds a pen, thinking he'll write something. Memories, sentiments, unspoken affections.

Nothing seems right.

It ends up pages and pages of flowers, speaking for themselves with Minseok’s diligent handiwork.

His painting is finished.

—he thinks.

It's the image he imagined, surely, and he can't think of anything wrong with it. There's no little details to add to give it the life he wants, no more feelings he has bottled up that have yet to be let out. But it's still incomplete.

He stares at it hard, and then gives up to gaze around the room. He pretends he doesn't know what he's looking for, saving the cabinet for last. It's the one with Jongin’s birthday gift, still unopened.

Minseok stares for a long time, and then gets up to open the door and hold the most suitable gift Jongin could have given him.

There have been many times in Minseok’s life that he's felt are difficult. But only a few have ever made him feel as if fate has dealt him the unfair half of misfortune—only a few that truly made him curse his existence.

He's lying in a hospital bed, hearing the reason for his collapse, and thinks about how much he truly well and dearly despises his life.

One of the few joys in his life is putting art to canvas, bringing alive scenes he may never see in person. They're his precious fantasies that don't need to match reality, his personal escapes. If he were to actually visit the locations he bases his works on, he imagines it'd disappoint him in comparison to his lively imagination.

Recently, he's been working on a piece he actually wants to submit to a gallery. The owner, Do Kyungsoo, doesn't require a big name to accept submissions.

“I just want art. Make of that what you will.”

Art. The representation of the soul, in all of its complexities, in a way that meaningfully conveys it. Minseok felt he could do that—in fact, he felt these were the only conditions he'd be able to get his work accepted on.

Therefore, he'd been picky about the result. He'd trashed several copies of the same piece; at some point they all strayed from his mind’s image, and he's never been able to pinpoint when until it's too late.

He'd finally solved it when he browsed a new art shop, far from his usual one, and was struck by the shades of a brand too luxurious to be found in his local store.

This is what he's missing. Something special and new, maybe not literally but figuratively a change from his norm. The way he uses these paints will change the outcome—the certainty driving him is the same as when he has an idea he has to commit to canvas.

He makes it halfway through the painting before he starts coughing. It reaches the point where he's unable to focus, and the next thing he knows he's in the hospital.

They tell him there's a chemical in the paint that he uses that reacted badly with his immune system. Normally this level isn't harmful, but he's sensitive.

He's always sensitive.

His body picks and chooses what it reacts to, and he'll never know until it's too late. The list is ever growing.

This incident isn't serious, but they tell him he should avoid this brand and read the ingredients for any supplies he buys.

When he can finally return home, his unfinished work stares him in the face. He covers the vivid red with a blue that's safe, that he's used countless times, and he finishes the painting but it doesn't feel complete in his heart.

He submits it anyways.

Do Kyungsoo tells him it's not what he's looking for.

It's not the paint’s fault, Minseok knows, but he doesn't know how to blame a heart so weak it'll crumble under the pressure.

What Kyungsoo does accept is his job application, and Minseok spends less and less time in his studio.

Jongin couldn't have known. No matter how much he'd looked into Minseok, he'd never have found out this detail. If he knew, he would have never bought it.

A replica of the paint that built his dreams and crushed them sits in his hands again, and it once again serves the same purpose.

He knows what his painting is missing.

He opens the package carefully, as reverently as he'd unwrapped it on one of the happiest days of his life, and feels the weight of the bottle in his hand.

He looks towards his palette and brushes, and in the face of his almost-complete masterpiece, pours the paint into his palm and dips two fingers into it to press onto his canvas.

He finishes with scarlet staining his skin. He doesn't bother to wash his hands as he picks brushes to add his details, meticulous with every line and dot, and when he finally steps back to admire his work it summons tears to his eyes.

This is the last of hopes. The last of his love.

This is not going to be his masterpiece. 

This is his legacy.

Kim Minseok has called out more times than Do Kyungsoo normally allows employees to, but something has always held him back from rimming his guide through the phone when he says once again he's not coming in.

It started as he can't, with a tone that Kyungsoo recognized as a sort of gravity he wouldn't question. But more and more, Minseok seemed less concerned with legitimacy and eventually phoned in with the single sentence of, “I’m not coming,” to which Kyungsoo almost lost it, but held back and gave a curt, “Understood,” before hanging up.

He doesn't feel guilty finding a replacement, but it is concerning when Minseok no longer bothers to even call. He'd never said he wanted to quit, so Kyungsoo kept him on the roster and even the payroll just because it's a hassle to take people on and off the thing.

Minseok always called.

The day he doesn't feels ominous, and it's as a friend rather than his boss that Kyungsoo visits his address. He muses Minseok maybe never thought of them as such, since the only thing Kyungsoo has ever accepted from him is his resume, but even that’s proof of Kyungsoo’s approval.

He wouldn't bother to accept anything if he felt the person wasn't worthy.

Kyungsoo had always been waiting with Minseok—for what, he's not sure, but deep down with every rejection his conviction became stronger. Minseok could submit a work that Kyungsoo’s gallery needed; he just hasn't presented it yet, and Kyungsoo holds the hope that every one will be the one.

But if Minseok has decided to quit the gallery, maybe it'll never come. Kyungsoo isn't in the habit of forcing things that don't want to happen.

He knocks on the apartment door, and no one answers.

He tries again, and on the third time he decides to test the door on a whim. If it’s locked, he’ll give up and consider it Minseok’s resignation. Maybe he’ll hold off on removing him from the system another few days.

Surprisingly though, the door opens softly with a click and Kyungsoo steps inside cautiously.

“Hello?” he calls out as he toes off his shoes. No one answers, and he tries not to scan Minseok’s apartment too thoroughly. Kyungsoo values privacy, and he doesn’t wish to invade Miseok’s more than necessary.

His employee is nowhere seen from the entryway, so Kyungsoo peeks into a door slowly.

He’s not in the bathroom either. Or his bedroom.

Kyungsoo is just starting to feel awkward opening every door in someone else’s apartment when he tries the next one and his eyes widen. 

Then he looks down.

“Minseok!”

Kyungsoo had wanted to stay by Minseok’s side even as the ambulance carted him away, but he’d been barred on the grounds of not enough space. Some short kid from next door forced himself forward, and a broody guy followed him and after that there was no room for someone labeled a “stranger.” He supposes Minseok’s neighbors ought to have been closer to him than Kyungsoo though, so he lingers at the edge of the scene to watch the vehicle drive off, and the apartment door left ajar catches his eye.

His first instinct is to close it and go, leave a man’s sanctuary to its silence. But with his hand on the knob, there’s one thing he can’t leave behind.

He re-enters Minseok’s studio, and only in the space devoid of people, devoid of the body of his employee, can he admit that before his friend’s collapsed figure, what stole his breath was the work he’d left behind.

Kyungsoo doesn’t recognize the man in the painting, but there’s an ethereal stillness about his figure. His eyes are closed, but it’s hard to tell if he’s supposed to be asleep. There’s something about it, something Kyungsoo can’t name, that makes him consider that maybe the subject is supposed to be dead instead.

The most striking element, though, is the bright dashes of red that cover the canvas. They almost look like stains, like a child swiped their hands along a finished work, but there’s too much detail in their placement and texture to be random. The rose petals would traditionally add beauty to a piece, but here Kyungsoo feels oddly haunted.

This is what he’d been waiting for. All of Minseok’s works lacked something, and Kyungsoo had lied when he claimed he didn’t know what.

What they all lacked was feeling. Every picture Minseok gave him felt empty, turning away from what he’d first turned in, but if he told Minseok that he feared they would only get worse, because instead of nothing there’d be too much of the wrong something. He gets a lot of those, heads filled with ideas and intentions that have no place in art, and he hadn’t wanted Minseok to become one of them.

This piece is filled with so much human, it’d taken Kyungsoo’s breath away the instant he’d seen it.

A little ways away, he spots a familiar form. The bold title across the top reads the name of his gallery, and every detail he requires for a submission is filled out.

**The Next Life**

_This is my love, my heart. It’s my struggles and my hopes. This is everything I feared, and now that I’ve faced it, I can only go forward. The wish I didn’t make when I blew out the candle is that I hope when we meet again, we’ll have more life between us._

_Kim Minseok_

“Am I dead?”

The thing that looks like Jongin laughs. It’s not unkind, but Minseok can’t tell what’s up or down, and his dead boyfriend is smiling at him.

“Do you think you are?” he asks.

Minseok frowns.

“If I had a guess I would have said it.”

Not-Jongin chuckles again. “Of course you would.”

It doesn’t look like he’s going to carry on the conversation. Minseok doesn’t really want to either, an unsettling floaty feeling turning his gut, but there’s not much else to do.

And there’s things he never got to say.

“Are you really Jongin?”

The thing with Jongin’s face leans forward, teasing. “Are you really Minseok?”

He doesn’t like this conversation.

“How long do we have?”

Jongin softens, and he looks so much like the one Minseok loves his mind starts confusing the two. “However long you want.”

“Forever?”

“That’s not really what you wish for.”

It’s not. Not here, with Not-Jongin. Their chapter has ended, and Minseok has spent too long making peace with that to wish for more. What he wants is a better next time, a happier next life.

That’s why the Jongin he imagined when he painted him was neither dead nor asleep. The Jongin he imagined was just about to wake up—into a new morning or a new life, Minseok left ambiguous. He himself hadn’t settled on an answer.

But that doesn’t mean he hadn’t left things unfinished.

“Why were you looking for a roommate?”

Jongin had already answered him, but they spent so little time talking about the end that Minseok wanted to hear it directly for once. Closure.

“I wanted to die a lonely death, but not alone.” It’s the answer the real Jongin had given him. This one hesitates. “I wanted someone to miss me.”

Dying had never scared Minseok. He knew since he was a child that he was more prone to sickness, more sensitive, more likely to die an early death. He lived more in the hospital than he did his own home, until he was strong enough for the doctors to feel safe letting him out.

He hated going back, because there had never been a guarantee he’d be allowed to leave.

“But you didn’t want them to miss you for long,” he supplies, because the Jongin he knows isn’t cruel. “You were looking for someone to die with you.”

This Jongin doesn’t nod or shake his head, doesn’t say a word. He just looks sad, and it’s enough of an answer.

“Are you upset?” he asks instead.

At first, he had been. He finally found someone after Lu Han to love, and it turned out that even he only saw Minseok for his illness. His expiration date. Lu Han could never ignore the end looming over Minseok’s head. He worried too much, exercised too much caution, and Minseok had begun to resent him. It’d been Minseok that broke things off to save them from splintering completely, and it’d been Minseok who regretted it when Lu Han moved on and found someone new while Minseok continued his march towards death, alone.

He knew Lu Han wouldn’t say no if he asked to move in to adjacent apartments. Minseok, too, hadn’t wanted to die alone.

“No. You loved me more than that.”

Fake Jongin looks like Real Jongin did when they’d woken up together, sunlight spilling behind him in radiance. A softness Minseok had treasured.

Minseok suddenly isn’t sure he’s a fake.

His voice splinters.

“Jongin—?”

“Did you kill yourself for me, Minseok?”

Jongin looks so sad. Minseok feels time slipping through his fingers like sand, and he rushes to hold on to however long he can.

“No,” he insists. “It wasn’t on purpose. I lost track of time, trying to find the right words, the right title. I took the risk, but I—I wanted to submit it myself. If I could.” He remembers thinking that for the amount of time he spent expecting death, it still surprised him at the very end.

His Jongin smiles, and he walks closer.

Beeping cuts through the air, and Minseok wants to scream. Even though he’s used to hearing a steadier rhythm, the frantic pulses of it are just as bad. Everything goes dark, and as he fights to open his eyes again, to see Jongin one last time, he finds he can only blink blearily into a whiteness that’s too sterile for him to mistake.

The static noise of commotion bustles around him, but what tramples over it all is the beeping.

_beep beep beep beep beeeeep_

Minseok closes his eyes and surrenders his senses. He thinks of the last thing he heard Jongin say to drown out the dreadful noise of the heart monitor.

_“Find me in the next life.”_

**Author's Note:**

> my brain: write the continuation of soulmate au u have it outlined  
> me: finds my vampire au wip and actually likes it
> 
> originally i wasn't going to make it explicit but then i decided to try it and this is the sad attempt rip. i'm not a medical expert so i really kinda bs'ed minseok's condition so if it doesn't scientifically pan out then pls use ur imagination bc this fic also has vampires, realism is not the focus.
> 
> i might write a short continuation for this (haha i also thought all my fics would be short except jokes on me i almost hit 20k for this) just so it really does have a happy ending, but as u can see things don't always go according to my plan.
> 
> anyways i hope it was an enjoyable read and as always thrive xiukai nation!! also i dont usually reply to comments but i do read every one and i'm so grateful for everyone and anyone who takes the time to share their thoughts with me and read my work T_T thank you so much!!! i love you all!!!


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